Beautiful
by simplysarcastic
Summary: You watched her change, you watched her leave you alone with the demons that have become your life. And even though it’s selfish, you want the girl she once was. The girl that loved you back.


**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc.

**Beautiful  
**_It hurts to let go._

This time, it will be different. The words, themselves, aren't very difficult to understand, but they hold this bittersweet melancholy. They hold the promise of wind and stars, of whispered nights spend without a care in the world. Those lovely dreams that you held at seventeen. That is what you think about on the solitary nights that seem to stretch on forever.

Those times when you held her in your arms, that's what you remember the best. Laughing like lunatics, dancing in the pouring rain, the feel of her warm lips on your cool ones. Her hair the colour of dahlia and copper, the lovely springy curls that bounced around her face and frizzed when the weather was bad. It's like a broken record, the memories of her.

You trace the old worn leather of her diary, tears pricking your eyes and your breathing slowing. When you open it, the biggest invasion of privacy possible, you read the first few sentences before shutting the book. The familiar loping, graceful letters that she wrote with jump up at you from within the page, and they send shivers down your spine.

You miss her. It's a deep ache within your heart, pulsating there until you remember everything, until you fall deeper into this depression that engulfs you. It's not only the memories that tear you apart, it's the photographs. You hid them a long time ago, in a wide black box that you stored under your divan bed. It's covered with a thin layer of dust and regret when you pull it from under there and blow the filth away.

When you crack open the lid, your breath stills in your throat and you lift the first photo from its place. Her, with that fragrant red hair and glowing beauty, only thirteen, sitting on a tree branch, laughing as the photographed-you tried to push her off. It's the memories that are killing you, though.

Fourteen. Angry, lonely, cursing and blowing up at everyone. Tangled red hair and dim green eyes, too skinny for her rounded build. Tattered jeans and smoke-scented t-shirts. Mugs of firewhiskey in her shaking hands, tears everywhere, you think you might have been in love with her now. Her parents are dead, and so is her soul and spirit.

Fifteen now, developed and proud, staying up late and studying, scowling at the two dark-haired boys that are your closest friends. She looks wiser now, with a small smile on her lips as she looks up at the camera, and winks. She grew up so fast, but she always held her childhood nearer. Angry, but less now. Life isn't out to get her anymore.

Sixteen passes, only a blur. Your first kiss, her locked in your arms, the sunlight fading fast. Beautiful, God, she was so beautiful. She slept with the boys and danced wildly. The anger was boiling up again, and no one knew when she'd detonate. When you look at the snapshots from so long ago, you can almost feel her beside you, laughing and smiling. It's the memories that hurt.

Seventeen, a beauty queen. Dressed all up in her rich coloured gown, hair done up. She doesn't look like a little girl anymore. Her saccharine-sweet voice singing along with the band, hands wringing with uncertainty. She wasn't yours anymore. He came out, dark hair ruffled charmingly, glasses glinting and hazel eyes warm and happy.

Head Boy and Head Girl, the perfect crime-stopping duo. The beautiful people in the daily rags. You watched them dance, both graceful, though you saw her stumble a bit in her stiletto heels. There were regrets, there always are, but when a charming dark-haired Ravenclaw asked you to dance, you agreed.

You danced as if you were going to forget. One pretty girl after another, there was no stopping you. That was until you saw her a the drink table, holding two flutes of bubbling butterbeer, cheeks flushed and eyes wide. She asked you how were you, were you enjoying yourself? You replied as customary, your voice curt and level.

Yet, she didn't notice. Those beautiful eyes, a green so bright and enchanting, flickered beyond you, and she abandoned her drinks and ran to embrace the other boy. Sirius Black, looking handsome and dashing in his perfectly fitting robes in a splendour of colours, hugged her back, stormy eyes lively.

And there was you, ill-fitting robes with patched pockets and scars running down your face. You shifted from one foot to another, obviously uncomfortable in the chatter of your friends. You loved her so much, you still do, but it's over. It always was.

There she is, eighteen and all dolled up in her wedding gown. Soft curls of that titian hair frame her gentle, feminine face and a whisper of subtle makeup emphasise her dazzle. The church, a tiny little place buried in the Irish landscape, is bedecked with bursts of fresh roses and wildflowers, tasteful ribbons and bows and the faint scent of vanilla and cinnamon.

You want to cry when you see her come down the aisle, beautiful and gleaming, a bouquet of bright orange flowers in her hands. She always was different. Not in that awkward, eye-rolling way, but in the way that made people gawk and secretly, though they'd never admit it, yearn to be like her.

It's a charming wedding, with pleasant company, music and surroundings. The bride and groom, happy as expected, probably even more, talk to you, laugh with you, act like nothing went wrong. Your hand lingers on her arm a moment too long, and the happiness in extinguished in her eyes, she looks at you guiltily, remembering. It's the memories that hurt the most.

It's the way you know that she could've been yours that rips you apart the most. And a song comes on, an enchanting, fairy-tale sort that strikes a chord in your heart. A song that brings back memories of sitting in a filthy booth with her, mugs of firewhiskey in your hands, laughing at the irony of the lyrics as you took long drags of a cigarette. She'd whack you, tell you it's not good for your health, and you'd laugh loudly, tell her that she's bad for your health, but you kept her around. And anyways, she liked to smoke them too. Hypocrite.

It's the song that you use to hate, use to scoff at. She glances up from her plate, eyes shining, and she smiles. She remembers too, and somehow that warms your cold heart slightly. She remembers.

A few songs pass, she's dancing with her husband and anyone who'd bother to ask, and you decide that you'll ask her next. You call her name, walking up to her amid a crowd of young men, and ask her for a dance. For a moment, she hesitates, but agrees.

And now she's in your arms again, head nestled on your shoulder, the smell of _her_ perfume and _her_ shampoo everywhere. She talks as you dance, the formalities extinguished as quickly as they appeared because dancing was your thing. Not only yours, not only hers, it was something that was the shared flame that you always kept close.

"I can't dance." she whispers, embarrassed and you look at her oddly. Because you can still remember the nights in those filthy pubs where firewhiskey was never sparse and the ceiling wasn't visible from the cloud of smoke. You remember holding her so tightly in your arms as she cried, inhaling her chalky, smoky smell.

She doesn't smell like she used to, smoke and hard alcohol. She smells like flowers and honey and everything good left on the world. He did that to her. He made her beautiful, charming and perfect in every way and you loath him for it. But, you know it isn't right to be upset at him for doing so, it made her happier, and that should be the only thing he cares about anymore.

You want her back.

You want the girl with dim eyes who wore torn denim and got drunk on school days. You want murky, foul-mouthed Lily Evans, with tangled hair and bloodless lips. You want the girl who was falling apart. But that's being selfish, stupid really, because she's happy now, beautiful now, a star now.

Mrs. James Potter now.

"Do you remember?" You whisper as you pull her away from the centre, into a corner. She stiffens, no longer giggling and smiling. You feel satisfaction pulse through you, and guilt soon follows. She shakes her head, no longer enjoying the memories of the past.

The dance fades away, and as does she. And she runs back to her husband, to everything wholesome and good, running away from the darkness and more importantly, the past. You've lost the need for human contact now, so you hide away in the shadows and try so hard to forget. Try to forget her tears, her frustration, her understanding.

She'll never understand you anymore, and that's what pierces the arrow through your heart. You watched her reach rock-bottom and stay there for awhile, liking the sights, before slowly being teased and influenced awake by the light. You lost her to the sunlight, to the daydreams, to the people that could heal her shattered pieces.

You wish you could forget. Somehow, anyhow, just to let go. It's time to go home, you decide as you pull on your leather coat, go back to rotting walls and microwaved dinners, to girls that sold their soul to the devil. She used to be one of those girls.

And, for some reason, that's what hurts the most.

FIN.


End file.
